


Swimming Pools and Arachnophobes

by night_is_where_the_romance_is



Category: Now You See Me (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, One-Shot, spoilers for now you see me 2
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-24
Updated: 2016-06-24
Packaged: 2018-07-16 22:43:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7287637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/night_is_where_the_romance_is/pseuds/night_is_where_the_romance_is
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lula May has been on the run with the rest of the Horsemen ever since the events in London on New Year's Eve. What most didn't see under the magic tricks was a real person, one who loved to swim and was deathly afraid of spiders. Most of all though, besides one of the best magicians the world has ever known, Lula May loves Jack Wilder, and Jack Wilder loves her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Swimming Pools and Arachnophobes

What people didn’t realize about Lula May was that beneath the sassy comments and the magic tricks, she was a person. A real person, one who slept and read books and ate food that was bad for her and had weird cravings at two in the morning and was in love and exercised.

Lula was a swimmer, had been ever since she could remember. She was an early riser too, and they fit together perfectly. Ever since London, ever since they’d been on the run, she and the Horsemen, Dylan had made sure to find them a hideout with a pool so she could indulge in the water.

The thing she loved most about the water, besides the way it tasted and how it felt, rushing past in a blue swell that bloomed over her head, was the way it looked at three thirty in the morning, when it was just her on the damp tiles and the heavy, sticky air, and the chlorine that clung to her skin and hair. It was smooth and untouched, perfect and pure. It was something untainted, something only she had seen and felt and loved. It was something beautiful.

She dove into the pool, the water splashing onto the tile as it enveloped her like a second skin, droplets sticking to her as she surfaced for air. Her hair, brown that turned nearly black when she hit the water, was slicked back into a ponytail that flattened against her skull. The room became only her and the water, only her and the pool and the sensation of swimming as she dove, swam lap after lap, breathing in heavy air and worked her burning muscles, propelling herself forward and claiming dominance over the splashing waves that came careening towards her in a perpetual cycle of synchronized arms and legs and water. She swam for hours.  
_______

Jack woke up at six, his bed losing warmth with the lack of Lula’s presence. He knew where she had gone, her trademark trail was there. Carefully pulled back covers, as so not to disturb him, missing flip flops that she kept near the door, and a towel gone from the folded pile in the bathroom. He exited the bedroom and walked silently, hearing Merritt snore from behind his closed door. Dylan was already awake and was sitting at the kitchen table of the condo they were hiding in, and he jerked his head towards the cracked door leading to the pool, not even bothering to stop drinking his steaming coffee. Jack nodded once and continued forward, coming upon the poolroom.

For all the time that they had spent together in the aftermath of the downfall of Walter Mabry, not one of them had seen Lula swimming. The men had all agreed that that was her time, that she should be able to take a few hours to spend with only her and the water. After all, each of them had rituals that none of them interrupted: Merritt played darts wherever, even though he was hopeless at it, Dylan read his father’s journal that had been left to him and counted out 300 seconds by his watch everyday religiously, Atlas would draw up blueprints of secure buildings and figure out possible ways to break in, and Jack himself would throw cards until there was only a perfect stack and several empty boxes of playing cards left. Everyone had their own time, their own rituals that allowed them to keep their sanity as the FBI continued their relentless combing of countries for them, and as Walter and Arthur’s connections searched for them as well. Everyone had their own time to themselves.

Jack forgot about all that though, as the growing sounds of water lapping at the sides of the pool grew louder and more entrancing by every step he took. He entered through the open door, and stood soundlessly as he watched Lula cut through the water. She had a calm order that balanced out the chaos of the pool, a cool disposition that seemed so at odds to her usual sass and laughter. Her arms and legs were taut, her eyes fixated on the water, the chlorine and chemicals that splashed against her eyes didn’t distract her gaze. Jack stared at the woman in the pool, determined and strong. He was overcome for a moment by how lucky he was, to be with a person as amazing as Lula. She matched him with wit and abilities with magic, and her quick-thinking was flawless. She was fantastic. And she, for some reason unknown to Jack, was in love with him. And Jack was undoubtedly, undisputedly, irrevocably in love with her. He stayed in the shadows of the corner, unwilling and unable to disturb her. This was still her time.  
_________

Lula hoisted herself out of the pool and walked to the shower, her aim to hose off whatever chemicals she could. She blindly snagged her towel, not even bothering to look at the chair it had sat slung upon next to the entryway. Her hand turned on the shower, triggering a cascade of icy water that splashed drops onto her feet. She wrung her hair and stepped under the spout, her eyes on the floor as she let the water pour onto her and pool at her feet. It swirled down the drain, sliding down the metal grate and into the pipes below.

Right next to one of the largest spiders Lula had ever seen.

“Holy shit,” she whispered, eyes huge but her feet firmly rooted in place, unable to move.

Not many people knew that Lula May was arachnophobic, but those who did knew that she didn’t scream or run. She simply became paralyzed with fear, her entire body shut down while her mind continued to race. Normally if there were spiders, one of the guys was there to kill it or flick it away, so she was okay. But she was utterly alone. No one was there. It was just her, the pool, and the giant spider.  
__________

Jack was still watching Lula, until her entire body stilled and her eyes grew large, riveted on something tiny at her feet. 

There could only be one thing that made Lula shake like that.  
__________

There was just a spider there, bigger and bigger every passing second. The water still hissed past, it still slid down her body and down the drain, now tinted slightly blue from the chlorine that soaked into her bikini. 

The spider inched forward a centimeter.

And a playing card, the Jack of Hearts, spun out of nowhere and sliced it in half.

“Oh my God,” Lula said, then stumbled back a step, nearly falling backwards, until she hit a warm hard body. She turned to stare upwards into a pair of heart-melting brown eyes, large hands wrapped around her waist and tugged her close. Lula shuddered then took Jack’s face in her hands, pulled him closer into a kiss. She couldn’t register anything but the slowly-fading fear in her and the feel of his lips, his mouth. She couldn’t say anything close to thank you, to the gratitude that coursed through her entire body, so she let her kiss say it for her. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she noticed that one of Jack’s arms left her body for a moment from where it was holding her close to his body (she did notice, however, that he hadn’t put on a shirt that morning) to turn off the shower. It was minutes until Jack broke the kiss to look deep in her eyes, to assess whether or not Lula was alright, was recovered from the fear that he could tell had shaken her to her very core.

“Thank you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! This was my first Jack/Lula fic, so I hope it was ok. If you have any requests, please let me know as I'm always open to requests and/or reviews. Thanks!


End file.
